Tar Sands Armageddon

I used to think that our Northern  neighbor, Canada, was one of the most civilized (and civil) industrial countries. And then came Tar Sands Oil extraction. The current Republican-like government is betting the ship on this single project, without any realization of the enormity of the disaster it will help bring about. Here are some tidbits of information obtained from "DeSmogBlog":

- Oil sands mining is licensed to use twice the amount of fresh water that the entire city of Calgary uses in a year.
 - At least 90% of the fresh water used in the oil sands ends up in the tailing ponds so toxic that propane cannons are used to keep ducks from landing.
- Processing the oil sands uses enough natural gas in a day to heat 3 million homes.
- The toxic tailing ponds are considered one of the largest human-made structures in the world. -The ponds span 50 square kilometers and can be seen from space.
- Producing a barrel of oil from the oil sands produces three times more greenhouse gas emissions than a barrel of conventional oil.

We have a stock in this Canadian enterprise, not only as habitants of a country through which the Canadian company wants to run a pipeline, but also as habitants of this planet suffering from climate change, but also  The proposed Keystone pipeline route through the US passes through the Ogawalla Aquifer, which provides water for 27% of the irrigated farmland in the US but also provides drinking water for 27% of the people living in this aquifer region. Jim Hansen, one of the most respected climatologists in the world, has said that giving permission to build this pipeline is a test case for  how serious the Obama Administration is about stopping or slowing climate change. In 2012 the atmospheric CO2 concentration showed, not a slow down, but a huge increase to the present value of 395 pmm.

It is not too late to stop this project! Lets call our Congressmen and Congresswomen.

Dr. Lagrange Would Be Smiling

In the late 1700's, the mathematicians, Leonhard Euler and Joseph Lagrange, discovered that there are five points where the gravitational attractions of two astronomical bodies exactly cancel out. Actually, due to the elliptical orbit of the earth, these are "areas" rather than points.
A diagram of the five Earth-Sun Lagrange sites is shown below (from Wikipedia).

These sites are not just of academic interest, but may actually be the saviors of the world!
This is a rather presumptuous statement, even for a molecular biologist like myself, so let me try to explain. In 1958 the Polish astronomer, Kordylewski,  observed the presence of large very faint clouds of dust at two of these Lagrange sites. And of course there have been many science fiction books using Lagrange sites for a variety of fantastic operations..  And then yesterday as I was imbibing my daily dose of Progressive News Blogs, I was startled to learn that NASA actually  has proposed a plan to robotically  "capture" a small asteroid in a net-like device (see below) and drag it to orbit the moon, where it could be intensively studied by manned expeditions. Wow! and double wow!!

http://tinyurl.com/cp7okjc

And now the plot thickens. A few months ago I read an article about a proposal by Russel Bewick, a graduate student (!),  and his collaborators in a paper in the Journal of Space Sciences. This is a respected journal and the paper, at least to my eyes, appears solid. They propose to drag a fairly large asteroid such as Ganymede 1036 to the L1 Earth-Sun Lagrange point, and to attach a "mass-driver" to maintain the position of the asteroid and also to generate huge clouds of dust. This dust cloud would encompass around 1,600 km and would be prevented from wandering off by  the gravitational pull of the asteroid. Berwick calculated that this cloud could produce a 1.6% reduction in the sunlight reaching the earth, too little to be actually detected by eye, but enough to decrease the temperature of the earth by around 2 degrees centigrade and eventually ameliorate the effects of global warming.

When I read this, I had said to myself that this is a  great idea but totally not feasible. But then came the NASA bombshell and what seemed  not feasible now seemed perhaps at least possible. But of course, the technology does not yet exist and the possible dangers abound such as making an error in the calculations (ie using English units and not metric units) and thereby letting the asteroid hit the earth and destroy 90% of the life, as happened 60 million years ago in the Yucatan.  But by the time we  have this technology, the accumulative effects of global climate change may be so horrible that this may be a chance worth taking to save our civilization. So my statement that the Lagrange Points may be the savior of the world may not be too crazy after all!

What, me worry?

I have always admired Australia for its way of life and for its down to earth people. But just when the devastation wrought by Super Storm Sandy in our country is beginning to be forgotten (but not by the people who  lost their homes!), Australia is suffering thorough a  monumental heat wave. Temperatures above 50 degrees Centigrade (122 degrees Farenheit) in some places have actually caused the Australian Bureau of Meterology to add additional colors to its weather charts.

There are over 100 brush and grass  fires and there is no end in sight. One especially frightening photo shows a family immersed in water up to their necks trying to escape a wild fire.

The Australian Government Climate Commission admits that this weather is almost certainly a result of climate warming caused by greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. But amazingly, Australia still gets over 75% of its electricity from the dirtiest fossil fuel of all, coal, and is the largest coal-exporting country in the world. The previous Prime Minister was in fact a major "climate change denier". Perhaps this experience will begin to change minds of the public and affect government policies.

I also have always admired our Northern neighbor, Canada, as one of the most civilized countries in the world. But now Canada is being run by an ultra conservative government which wants to harvest oil from shale. Shale oil is definitely the dirtiest type of oil and the environmental destruction wrought by obtaining this oil is devastating. Canada, say it aint so!

I just read an article by David Roberts entitled "If you aren't alarmed about climate, you aren't paying attention." The link is http://grist.org/climate-energy/climate-alarmism-the-idea-is-surreal/
Read it and you won't be able to sleep for several nights.

I also read an article in Nature by Jeremy Grantham entitled  "Be persuasive. Be brave. Be arrested (if necessary)". It urges scientists to stop being non-emotional and begin to become desperate. I agree. The currently predicted four degrees of warming will affect our civilization so dramatically that there is no certainty that any adaptation is possible. And the possible seven degrees of warming predicted if nothing at all is done will prove too horrible to conceive. I urge my fellow scientists to become desperate and let people know.

Matthew Chapman: Gun Control, Rio De Janeiro, Colorado, and the USA

I copy below an article written by Matthew Chapman after the most recent American massacre. I agree with everything he says.

"As someone who grew up in a place where guns designed to kill people are more or less banned and where no one feels that some essential freedom has been lost (on the contrary, freedom from fear is cherished) I often wonder what it will take for Americans to absolutely reject the groups like the NRA, all their ideas, and anyone who supports their morbid, necrophiliac love of an element of the constitution that is anachronistic, poorly written, unclear, and insanely stupid given modern weaponry. After which, we could actually start to do something to save the approximately 30,000 lives lost to gunshot wounds every year, many of them children.

When I adapted John Grisham's book Runaway Jury, changing it from a lawsuit about tobacco to one about guns, I met gun manufacturers who, supported by the NRA, proudly refused to add even the most basic safety features to guns and resisted any kind of legislation aimed at preventing negligent marketing of guns to individuals who were clearly selling them on to criminals. It was the most cynical thing I ever witnessed, this faux reverence for the constitution. My belief is that sooner or later a gunman or gunmen with legally acquired weapons will kill not 12 or 20 people but several hundred children (who no one advocates arming for self-defense) trapped in some unique location. And then, maybe, Americans will say, "Wow, I wonder if we should do something about this arcane piece of constitutional junk and start bringing America into the modern world."

I dislike reverence in almost all forms, it's usually a kind of constriction on the intellect, but reverence for old documents is doubly stupid when, as in this case, and rather unusually, the writers of the document had the good sense to write in a provision for changing the thing when needed and indeed encouraged the idea of doing so! I'm sure, as with so many things, this would have happened decades ago if America wasn't so arrogantly averse to looking at other countries where various things function better than in "the greatest country in the world." And demonstrably so. Just look at the figures for murder by gun in any other country in the world outside of war zones. Or look at what has happened in the other city I sometimes live in, Rio de Janeiro.

People say they want to keep their guns in case criminals with guns come for them, and others say it's an impossible situation to solve, guns being so entrenched in North American culture. Well, all of that applies ten times over in the favelas of Rio which are, or were, much more infested with guns than any slum in America. Up in some favelas the gangs had guns that could bring down helicopters.

Here is a photo of me and the man who is solving the gun problem in these favelas, and in the culture of the favelas, Rio State Public Security Secretary Jose Mariano Beltrame.

Beltrame came up with the following strategy. He warned the favelas they were going to be invaded on a certain day and anyone caught with guns would be imprisoned. He then told the favela dwellers of an ongoing anonymous-reporting phone line so they could warn the police of large and small caches of arms.

And he assured them that once their favela had been taken over, community policing would take over. And -- and here's the key thing that's left out of all gun arguments in America -- SOCIAL SERVICES would be provided to help people get off drugs, train for jobs, find jobs, improve their homes, improve their schools, etc. Given a choice between a functioning gun-free society or one ruled by fear and greed, the community turned against those who owned guns, turned them over to the police, and -- perhaps most inspiringly of all -- accepted the social services but as a community went way beyond the government offered gift, taking control and care of their own neighborhood.

Anyone who doubts the possibility of radical and beautiful social change should see a crop of new Brazilian films that have come out of the favelas, or visit Rio which has become a different and so much more pleasant city -- and not just in the favelas. Just as with drugs, mere punitive action is demonstrably useless and often counterproductive. Look at the prison population in America while gun and drug problems continues unabated. Charity doesn't help much either.

There's a thing called government -- we vote for it, it's us if it's not corrupted by money -- and it can do anything if we don't constantly pour scorn on it as if it was something detached from us rather than our best and most just expression of ourselves."

Coffee and the Human Condition

I hate the taste of coffee. God knows I have tried to stand  in line at Starbucks and ask in a smug all –knowing voice “Give me a Latte” , and then retreat to a little table and pretend I am enjoying it. But they know it is fake when I refuse to use the cute little terms like “Tall, Grande and Vente” (I am still not sure what these mean) and just say “small”. I also  refuse the whipped cream on top and, to add insult to injury, I ask for only half a cup, which drives the barista crazy. Of course I say that I will pay for a full cup, but that does not assuage their opinion of me. In fact I can  only tolerate to sip the coffee by adding two or three packages of sugar.

And as for Starbucks, Peets and their ilk, these stores are the quintessential American plastic copies of the original coffee houses in Greenwich Village in the 60’s. They exude artificial friendliness in a “Steppford Wife” sort of way. And the fact that all look identical, no matter where you are in the US, belays the attempt  to convey a friendly neighborhood atmosphere.

I do however like the concept of coffee, the gemutlichkeit and camaradie that goes with sipping a cup with friends. But even this is sullied when I see the furtive smokers in the leper space outside the building at work with the cigarette in one hand and the omnipresent cup of coffee in the other (Why do smoking and coffee drinking go hand in hand?)

When I travel to my adopted country, Brazil, I do enjoy the institution known as the afternoon cafezinho (little coffee), where one goes to the neighborhood stand up Butequim (counter corner restaurant) and gets a tiny cup filled half with powdery sugar to which is added hot strong black coffee. One is then expected to drink the entire cup with one quick movement of the head. The only saving grace is that it tastes like sweet hot syrup. Again, I like the concept but I don’t like the actuality. But alas, the Starbucks disease has also infected Brazil; they even advertise that they are recreating the “Starbucks Experience” in Brazil.

Ah well, nothing is perfect.

June 2012 - The Most Destructive Fires in Colorado History

These fires were predicted to occur in the Southwest by almost all climatologists as a result of climate warming. The warming caused the severe droughts, which allowed the bark beetles to increase their range, which killed trees and created more fuel for wildfires. And yet no one in the popular media nor any politician - even President Obama - made this obvious logical connection.

And Andrew Freeman in the Climate Central blog pointed out that a major heat wave is hanging over the Southwest and is moving east. He said that "Denver endured a record fifth straight day of 100-degree temperatures on Tuesday, and the high temperature of 105°F tied the city’s all-time record high, a milestone that reached just a day earlier. Colorado Springs also hit an all-time mark on Tuesday, with a high of 101°F."

This is the most serious issue that the human race has ever faced and not a single politician in our country nor in any other country is planning to do anything about it. As Bill McKibben wrote recently, "Today is one of those days when you understand what the early parts of the global warming era are going to look like."

 God help us, the people in power will not! Their children and grandchildren will say "What were they thinking. Why did they ever let this happen?"

Go figure

The science of robotics is far above my scientific pay scale but not above my interest and amazement. I love to read (and write) Science Fiction and robots will almost certainly play a key role in the near future of our species. I just saw two videos about robot research which were both scary and exciting.

In one, a robot designed by Boston Dynamics for ARPA to be able to respond to disasters, appears to walk, climb steps and recover itself from falling in a truly humanoid and robust fashion. Truly incredible!
The link is  http://tinyurl.com/7aoxjty

In another video at the same link, a creepy robot named Jules has a Hal-like conversation with his human makers at Hanson Robotics. They could have at least left the back half of his head intact!

Go figure.